Why would someone want to sit inside and read a Bible (or any book, really), when the Great Book of Nature is all around them? Would you sit inside and read an ancient book while staying in Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Smoky Mountains, or any place with Nature nearby?

And, if you ARE a believer and you love your holy book, wouldn’t you just carry your God-Pages around with you while travelling? Do you need a hotel manager to loan you a copy?

“The percentage of hotels that offer religious materials in rooms has dropped significantly over the last decade, from 95% of hotels in 2006 to 48% this year.

Among the reasons for the change, according to industry experts, is a need to appeal to younger American travelers who are less devout than their parents or grandparents and to avoid offending international travelers such as Muslims or Buddhists.”

And why Bibles in these public places anyway? Here’s what Gideons is out to do in their quest to make the Whole World Christian where everyone reads only One Book:

“Bibles started to become a hotel standard in the late 1800s when three traveling businessmen founded Gideons International with a plan to spread the Gospels by placing the Bible in hotel rooms across the country.

The nonprofit group now has about 270,000 members in 200 countries. In its latest fiscal year, Gideon International spent about $100 million to distribute Bibles to hotels, prisons, hospitals and other locations, about the same amount as in 2015, according to the group’s financial statements.

Jeff Pack, Gideons International’s director of communications, said he isn’t sure why the STR survey shows a decline in religious material in hotel rooms, considering that the distribution of Bibles by his group hasn’t dropped.

“The decline of religious materials in hotels, as cited in the survey, is reflective of increasing secularism and independence in the world,” he said. “This has resulted in an erosion of spiritual awareness.”

OR, there is “an erosion of spiritual awareness” because too many are thinking of other worlds and too busy proselytizing and too busy reading “spiritual books” to give a care about the goodness, beauty and wonder of this world.

I’ll never really understand the Bible Believers (or Qur’an Believers. . .or any other Book Believers)

{I’m using the term “sacred” in the new “secular gospel” way. . .in other words, I’m borrowing the “holy word” from those who think they own the terms, meanings and “special knowledge” that come with experiences of wonder}